[New] rules are expected to go into effect as early as October 1.The changes will reduce the number of homeowners that will qualify for reverse mortgages and the maximum amount will be reduced as well.

People who apply before October 1 will qualify for the amounts under the rules now. Folks that are considering a reverse mortgage should act quickly if they want the current laws to apply."

The National Council on Aging (NCOA) today issued the 2013 version of Use Your Home to Stay at Home™, the official reverse mortgage consumer booklet approved by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD). The guide is designed to help seniors understand the pros and cons of a reverse mortgage. Reverse mortgages allow homeowners who are 62 or older to convert home equity into cash while remaining in the home.

Amy Ford, director of NCOA’s Reverse Mortgage Counseling Services Network, called the guide “an older homeowner’s best resource when it comes to examining whether a reverse mortgage is right for them.”

The Washington Supreme Court today announced an important decision, finding --- as the Oregon Court of Appeals just did recently in the Niday case --- that the phony-baloney attempt to dodge recording fees known as MERS can't have it both ways and claim to be just an administrative convenience AND force people out of their homes. Another blow for justice in the Northwest.

The Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled that the hydra known as MERS -- the monstrous placeholding dummy with a million phony vice-presidents, which the mortgage servicing industry created to attempt to evade the requirement (and the fees) that all transfers of interests in mortgages be recorded -- cannot use the streamlined, fast-track nonjudicial foreclosure process in Oregon! Niday v. GMAC Mortgage, LLC et al,

"[T]he import of our holding is this: A beneficiary that uses MERS to avoid publicly recording assignments of a trust deed cannot avail itself of a nonjudicial foreclosure process that requires that very thing-- publicly recorded assignments."The nonjudicial foreclosure process was created in the old days when lenders held onto their mortgage loans, which were actually underwritten thoughtfully. Fast forward to the slice-and-dice fast-money 1990s-2000s, when the banksters and money men started financializing everything and you suddenly had a tool that was being used against homeowners in ways never intended, by an entity never imagined by the law, a weird hybrid creature that pretended to be both the beneficiary of the loan (when useful to MERS) and not the beneficiary (again, when useful to MERS).

Hurrah for the Oregon Court of Appeals. BULLSEYE! Seems likely the MERS scammers will appeal but, for now, a true shining example of Oregon flying with her own wings and reaching the right conclusion despite a number of other states having missed the mark widely on this issue.

LAWYERLY FINE PRINT:

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